Maria dressed up in her belly dancing clothes today for a trial run, the night before she performs at a farmer’s market in Vermont.

She started to get nervous on Thursday and was tense all day today, but she is looking forward to performing and is as confident about dancing as I have seen her about anything.

She is also well prepared, she has been working towards this for two years. But the nervousness is not really about the belly dancing. I’ve know that from the beginning.

Maria is wearing make-up, which she has never done, and has been working for weeks on these clothes, which are very new for her, and she has never worn in public. I’ve never seen Maria take more than five minutes getting dressed, this has been going on for days, if not weeks.

Something that was never important to her takes on a different power in this context.

She’s asked me my opinion about her clothes and make-up a bunch of times, flattering me with the idea that I know anything about clothes and make-up, and that is also something she has never done. Maria has her own look and style, and she has no qualms about it, but this is something new, something different, something public.

This pulls to the fore some ugly ghosts, it brings into focus some powerful truths.

We both see that this belly dancing is really about the voices put into her head by people who should have loved her and encouraged her and recognized how special she was, but instead criticized and patronized and ridiculed her  for being different.

And she is different. I’ve never met anyone like Maria.

They hurt her badly, and and made her desperate to hide herself and her passions for much of her life. The Maria I met would no sooner have belly danced that get into bull fighting.

Those days are gone, but the voices remain, of course, hidden but still fierce. Maria is coming out like the hardiest spring flower.

The subconscious is like that, it has its own mind and listens to its own voices. I think of this as an exorcism. She is chasing those old voices out of her head. She is rejecting the people who told her she was incompetent, awkward, weak and ugly.

And I mean that literally. An exorcism (from the Greek exorkismos,or binding by oath)  is a religious or spiritual ritual practice of evicting demons or other unwanted spiritual entities from a person or soul or place that is believed to be possessed.

Maria has  often been possessed by these voices – other people’s voices – in her head, they have paralyzed her and hidden her from her chosen path and life. They can be terrifying.

These rituals, says the history of exorcism,  can be done by causing the subject to swear an oath, perform an elaborate ritual, or simply look to a higher power – nature, faith, love – to command the demons to depart.

As I think about it and research it, I realize this is not just a symbol or thought for me, it seems to me to fit precisely and be the truth. Belly Dancing has become the ritual by which Maria is commanding these cruel and false spirits and voices to depart her consciousness, her real self is emerging to take over and drive the voices out.

There is nothing more ritualistic than a belly dance. Maria has been very powerfully drawn to it from the beginning, she has always sensed this was something that was healing, and important and fortifying for her.

I keep wanting to tell these voices, enjoy your last full night around here, tomorrow will begin the process of sending you off. The rest is up to Maria and she is up to it.

This is a person who would never show her belly to anyone, even me at first. Tomorrow, she is showing it and her true spirit to the world.

Maria will call up her strength and voice and very strong attitude and drive some of those voices out of her consciousness.

That, I think, is the real story behind the belly dancing, which has been so important and transformative to her. I told her this is about telling herself the truth. She is no awkward or ugly or incompetent or silly. She is strong and powerful and honest, this is about telling herself and others who she really is.

By tomorrow at this time, she will be happy and grateful for her dancing way some demons. I believe she will command these demons to go away. I think that’s why she’s dancing.

Good for her, I can’t wait to be there to watch and celebrate and cheer her on. We are each better voices in the other’s head. We tell each other every day that we are strong, we are good, we are worthy.

Hopefully, I’ll return with a good video of the dancing. I already see a new attitude showing up in Maria’s face. And her costume is wild, I love it.

Tomorrow, the Garden Maria, the Tarzana Maria, the Frida Kahlo Maria, and the Willa Cather Maria will all take a rest and recedr into the background.

Tomorrow, the Real Maria is coming out for everybody to see, herself most importantly. I am just beyond proud of her.